


for the sake of another

by DuskDragon39



Category: Anthem - Ayn Rand, Gravity Falls, Transcendence AU - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Dystopia, Future-fic, Gen, Homelessness, Nameless Character - Freeform, Not really though, Objectivism, Post-Apocalyptic Society, Semi-crossover with Anthem, Similar principles apply, Slow To Update, because of course, before god!Alcor, has sort of gone too AU for that, it's steadily becoming more of a crossover, on Wikipedia, poorly researched
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:52:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuskDragon39/pseuds/DuskDragon39
Summary: Sometimes what you are given is not a choice, but what you do with that gift is.Or:The adventures of two children, a walking tree, and a demon that really needs to stop disguising himself for the sake of relieving his boredom. Also a post-apocalyptic society that abhors magic. That might be important to mention.





	1. Winter - Early Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Otherwise known as a rewrite of a story that I wrote for an english project last year that slowly began shifting into the Transcendence AU. Posting chapters in an effort to keep myself motivated and writing.  
> We'll see how it works out.
> 
> It should probably also be mentioned that this was extremely poorly researched and was based on a story that began as a reaction to Anthem.  
> So.  
> There's that.
> 
> Enjoy?  
> (Warnings for homelessness and the associated problems thereof)

“Tell me of Father Tree?”  
“Again?”  
“I liked that one.”

He curled around his sister, wrapping his large body around her tiny one and covering her with his arms. The cold bit into his exposed skin, burning where it touched. While the alley shielded the two children from the worst of the wind and the cold, it was still bitterly freezing. The cardboard box that his sister had found wasn’t large enough to cover them completely, and stray gusts found regularly found their way into the small hideout.

  
His sister shifted in her sleep, curling tightly into herself and her brother. He smiled down at her and stroked her hair. She was so tiny, tinier than she should be, with her ribs half showing and her small frame. Still, she was safe. She was safe and they were together, and that was all that they needed.

  
Well, that and food and a safe space to sleep in.

  
Outside snow began to fall, drifting peacefully into the alleyway. The wind died down as the snow fell, leaving the small shelter slightly warmer. Inside, the brother finally drifted off to sleep, confident that the snow would keep them both safe.

When he woke, his back was covered by a mound of cold. He shot up upright, hitting his head on the roof of the box, and cursed as another mound of snow tumbled down into the small space. While they had slept, the snow had almost covered their shelter. Pale white light filtered in through a gap in the icy whiteness. He groaned and slumped back down, trying not to kick his still sleeping sister. She stirred as he did so, stretching out against the confines of the small space.

  
“Wassup?” she asked, sleepily lifting her head.

  
“We got snowed in."

  
“Oh.” She dropped her head back down. A minute later soft snores filled their shelter. He gave her a sidelong look, shrugged to himself, and then set himself to the task of digging the two of them free .

Eventually, his sister woke up completely and began to help. There was a rhythm to the work, the steady scooping and packing of snow into a channel that would allow them free access to what was for now their home. When they finished, his sister was the first one out into snow. She let out a whoop, and her brother could see her feet dancing around outside. A second later, she dived back into the leanto and curled up into a ball, shaking.

  
“Yui? Are you okay?” he asked.

  
“C-c-cold-dd,” she muttered through chartering teeth. “It’s c-cold up there.” Her brother reached out and ruffled her hair affectionately.

“It’s snow, stupid,” he said, grinning. “It’s supposed to be cold.” She gazed up at him, a petulant tilt to her lips.

  
“Then why is it so warm in here?”

  
“’Cause we have the snow all around us, and it makes it a little bit warmer in here than it is out there.”

  
“It’s FREEZING out there.”

  
He sighed. “How deep is the snow?”

  
“It’s goes almost up to my chest in some areas.”

  
“… we’re not going to be able to get out of here, are we?”

  
She grinned up at him. “Nope. We’re stuck here.”

Her brother pulled himself into a crouch, trying not to hit his head on the roof. Grumbling, he pulled himself through the hole that he and Yui had made, and stuck his head up over the snow. A vista of white light met his eyes. The snow had completely covered the alley, leaving only a few of the larger piles of boxes visible. Their lean-to had been completely covered by snow. The only part visible was the hole that he and his sister had just dug. From what he could see, the street was no better either. The dirt road was completely covered by the snow. The shop across the street had its door half-buried. No one- Lost or otherwise- was around.

  
The brother sighed to himself and slipped back down into the buried lean-to. Yui was right. At least it was warm.

The days after that passed uneventfully. Yui and her brother spent their time curled up together for warmth, going through the last of their food supply and occasionally going up to try and stretch their cramping legs. Occasionally they would spot a few of the Living going about their business, trying to clear the streets of snow and clearing deep pathways around their doors. The children stayed inside their small shelter whenever they appeared. Encountering of the Living was always unpleasant, and neither of them had any wish to be kicked from what meager shelter they had.

  
While they waited for the snow to melt enough to allow them go search for food (Brother would scavenge; Yui stole unrepentantly), Brother told the stories. There were stories of times lost long ago, of demons and monsters and wild things, of beings less than human and beings that were so much more. He told Yui of the demons, of the Great Breaking, of Father Tree and the Woodsman, and of the star that never went out. Half the time Yui didn’t really pay attention. It was a way to pass the time, and she was also pretty sure Brother just liked the sound of his own voice.

  
It was okay though. She liked his voice too.

  
One night, when their food store was almost out and the wind whistling high above their snow-buried lean-to, she asked him again about Father Tree.

  
“Again?” He asked. She nodded. She liked that one. “Alright,” he said. “Where should I start?”

  
“At the beginning.”

  
He gave her a look. “Obviously. I meant, what story do you want me to tell?”

  
“The one about his origins.”

  
“… The one you’ve heard about a million times?”

  
She pouted. “I like it.” Brother rolled his eyes, and started speaking.

  
“Once, a very long time ago-”

  
“Before the war? And the Prometheus?”

  
“Yes, Yui, before the war-”

  
“And the Prometheus?”

  
Brother stopped talking and turned to face her directly. “Look,” he said, “Who’s telling this story here?”

  
Yui grinned unrepentantly and curled up against him. “You are,” she said. He rolled his eyes again, and began the story once more.

  
“Once, a very long time ago, before the war, before the Prometheus, there was a woodsman who made a deal with a demon.”

  
“Oooo.”

  
“Yui, you know this story.”

  
“Yep!"

  
“… Anyways, as I was saying, this man made a deal with a demon for the life of his child. But it wasn’t just any demon. This was the Star, the Devourer, the Dreambender, and the most powerful demon in the world. The man had come to him to beg for the life of his child became sick. No one could cure her, not even the best of the village healers.  
‘Demon,’ he said, ‘Please. Help my child. I’ll give you anything.’ The demon watched this man beg and said-”

  
“I know!” Yui interjected. “He said that the man had to give him something right? ‘Cause the demon had to have payment in order to help the guy and the guy was all like ‘I’ll do anything whatever you want blah blah blah’ and then-”

  
“Yui?”

  
“Yes?”

  
“Shut up.”

 

By the time he finished, Yui was asleep in his arms.

 

The winter passed as all winters do, slowly creeping back into its shell. Leaves began to unfurl from the trees. People began to leave their houses again; the farmers heading off to work their farms, and the others beginning to go once again about their duties. The snow in the little alleyway melted. The pile of boxes that had stood in the corner all winter began to crumble under the weight of the melt-water.

It was time to leave.

The siblings spent one last night in their safe, sheltered, alleyway. They curled against the back wall, shivering in the early spring night. It was cold here now, without the protection of their lean to. They’d leave in the morning, the brother decided, to find a new place where they could hide. And after that they could… he didn’t know. Something. Survive.

  
Yui shifted briefly in his arms, and he pulled her closer to himself. It was a miracle that they’d survived the winter. He briefly thanked whatever gods were out there that they had- now there was a thought. They could go to the forest. It’d be difficult, true, but they’d be more protected there. And maybe…

  
His musings were interrupted by a foot colliding with the back of his head. He jumped, pulling Yui away with him. They were cornered at the back of the alleyway. Ahead of him was a man. Ahead of him there was their only route to freedom.

  
The man’s eyes flashed darkly in the gloom. He grinned. It was not a nice grin.

  
“So,” he said. “’guess this is what’s been scritching away in my alleyway all winter.”

  
Yui thrust herself forward, nearly hissing at the man. Desperately, her brother grabbed her arm. If she got herself caught now-

  
The man laughed. “Got a little spitfire here, do we?” He paused, bending towards Yui. She writhed in her brother’s grasp, trying to attack the man. The man stood back up, and turned towards the mouth of the alleyway.

  
“Hey! Get in here! I got a couple of Lost kids.” The brother shrank back briefly, then shoved Yui forward.

  
“Run!” he yelled at her.

  
She ran, not even able to get a strike in at the Living man who had made her brother so afraid.

  
Behind her, the strange man yelped, then said “Hey-!” In front of her, the mouth of the alleyway was filled with the man’s friends. 

She gulped, and then pushed forwards, slamming into the front man and then spinning off onto the street. The dirt road was muddy after the rain, and she skidded and slipped into the shadow of a few trees off to the side of the road. Behind her, the men were looking around in confusion.

  
“Where’d they go? They were just here!” insisted the man who’d found them. “Just behind me!” The other men seemed hesitant to back this up.

  
“Look, John,” one of them finally said. “Yeah, I felt something push past me, but there’s nothing there.”

  
“I think you’ve had a bit to much to drink,” said another.

  
Yui pressed herself deeper into the trees. They hadn’t seen her? But-

  
A hand brushed her shoulder. She couldn’t help it. She shrieked.

  
“Shhhh!” her brothers voice came from somewhere to her left. She turned. There was no one there.

  
“Bro-?” she began, confused.

  
And then he was there in front of her. And she knew, knew with a stone cold certainty, that he hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  
“Yui,” he gasped, and then her brother collapsed to the ground unconscious.


	2. Early Spring [Traveling]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re back now,” she muttered into his coat. “You’re back again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited and rather short.  
> I blame the google doc sitting open in my browser that reads "The mess masquerading as a paper concerning human perception" that has been taking up all of my free time recently.  
> Next chapter will probably be up by the 28th at the latest.

Yui crouched next to her brother. She shook his shoulder, first tentatively, then harder and harder. She patted his face. Whispered, “Brother, wake up!”

His eyes remained stubbornly closed. 

Yui sat down next to his limp body, and lowered her head to her knees. 

Her brother lay in a puddle at her feet. Their alleyway home had been ferreted out by the living. She was hiding in a small grove of trees after her brother had appeared from nowhere and collapsed in front of her, and he wasn’t waking up.

He wasn’t waking up.

Softly, quietly, the girl in the trees tucked herself into a ball and began to cry. 

 

Morning dawned slowly, as if the sun itself was hesitant to breach the horizon. When harsh golden light began filtering through the treetops, Yui uncurled herself and knelt next to her brother. His body lay where he had collapsed the previous night. Yui watched him for a time. She was almost scared to touch him, scared that she might somehow break her brother even more. 

“Brother,” she whispered again. She tried to ignore how her voice broke over the word. They had to leave the area. If they didn’t, the Living would undoubtedly find them again. But Brother couldn’t move, wouldn’t wake up, and even if he did, they had nowhere to go. Already Yui could here voices coming from beyond their small grove as the Living began their day. 

She shook her brother’s shoulder again. 

“Brother,” she called softly. “Wake up. Please.”

The moments ticked past interminably. Each second dragged into the next as her brother’s eyes remained closed. 

Eventually, his hand twitched, and he reached up, grasping for something. Immediately, Yui grabbed his hand and held it close. His eyes flickered between her and the light filtering through the trees above them. 

“Wh-what happened?” he asked. His voice was dry and raspy. The sound was strange to Yui, used to his voice smoothly running over the words of whatever story he was telling. 

She choked on her words briefly, struck by the memory of the previous night. “You wouldn’t wake up,” she said. She choked down the sob that had built up in her throat. “I thought...”

Her brother hauled himself upright and pulled her into a hug. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry Yui.” In his arms, Yui was crying quietly, the tears streaming like rivers down her face. 

“You’re back now,” she muttered into his coat. “You’re back again.” 

 

The day passed slowly for the siblings. Though they needed to escape the area, there was nowhere they could go while surrounded by the Living. Brother planned to leave at moonrise. 

Yui felt this was a good plan. Few people would be out at the time, and they would be able to slip away through the night and replenish their stocks of food. 

Her brother had some other past that, she was fairly certain, but what it was she wasn’t sure. He just gave her a small smile when she asked, and said that “you’ll see.” 

What she’d see he’d never bothered to explain. It was annoying. 

They slept that morning two districts over, in a secluded corner by the corner of a bakery and an inn. In the evening, her brother’s eyes were red and blotchy from sleeplessness. Even when Yui presented him with fresh bread that she had snitched from an unobservant baker he barely said anything, only took the bread and gave her a weak smile. Something was wrong, she thought. And she was pretty sure it had to do with the events of the previous night.

 

As the two slinked through the shadows of the city, Yui danced around him, darting from one shadow to the next, stealing from closed stalls and windowsills. Every time she left, she would come back with another trinket, a toy, a loaf of day-old bread. These offerings were then presented to him with a grin and a hopeful look. He smiled at her antics. She was like a cat, he thought. Bringing back her kills to present to an older sibling.  
He paused at the entryway to an alley, being sure to stay out of sight. Across the way, a slim hooded figure darted through the moonlight and came to rest across from him.

Yui’s face peaked out from her hood, grinning unrepentantly. He groaned softly, and then gestured for her to follow him down into the alleyway. She shrugged and then followed him into the dark. The way ahead of them wound down through the center of the town. It would take them easily from the West district to the East, and from then onto the forest. 

Easy as food might be to get in the city, the danger simply wasn’t worth it, in his opinion. Not anymore, anyways. Add to that that his… problems were getting worse, and, well…  
They needed to leave. Wolves at least could be dealt with. When winter came again, they’d find a place to hole up in the city where they would have fairly easy access to food. Until then, the Eastern Wood would provide them with shelter. 

The path ahead of them crooked hard to the left. In a sheltered alcove, a group of the Lost sat huddled around a flickering fireplace. Their faces, normally hard with pain and fear, had been softened by the flickering light of the fire. One flicked his fingers absent-mindedly, adding more warmth to the flames. Yui turned to him and grinned hopefully.  
Sighing, he nodded, and stepped into the circle of firelight. 

“Storyteller.” The greeting came from the deer-headed man at the back of the circle. A variety of faces stared up at Yui and her brother. She cluched his hand. The first few moments with these circles were always spooky to her. The faces that stared at her weren’t all human, for starters. A small woman next to the deer-man had pointed ears. A man with sparks flickering on his fingers watched them suspiciously. Closer to her and her brother, a kid with hawk wings sat hunched over, snoring softly. 

Her brother nodded once, then asked “Can we join you?”

The deer-man nodded. “As you wish, Storyteller. Your sister as well.” 

The woman next to him leaned over and propped her chin onto her hand. “Storyteller, eh? Got any good ones?”

“Depends,” her brother said with a slight quirk to his mouth. “Anything you want to hear?” 

“Tricky one, kid.” She paused for a moment. “Give us something hopeful?” 

Her brother settled himself in next to Yui.

“This story,” he began, “Took place a long time ago. Before the War-”

“Lemme rephrase that, kid,” the woman interjected. “Something that’s not a damn history lesson.”

Brother raised his eyebrows at her. “Just wait, will you?” he asked. “Anyways,” he continued, “This story takes place before the Collective, and even before the first War.”

The winged kid stirred briefly, and then turned and curled into Yui’s side. She started briefly, then settled back down, letting the kid use her as pillow. She looked at them briefly. They looked up at her with amber eyes that slowly slid shut again. Their head lay pillowed on her thigh, the end of her jacket bunched up underneath their head. 

Yui sighed, then turned her attention back to her brother’s story. 

She’d deal with the kid in the morning. 

 

By the time her brother finished, she too was asleep, slumped over against his arm.


End file.
